We Chose the Suicide Option - Chalmers Johnson

In the introduction to his final book, Dismantling the Empire, America’s Last Best Hope (just out in paperback), he took up a recurring topic of interest to him: “the choice between republic and empire,” and the way “our imperial dreams stretch our means to the breaking point and threaten our future.” Among “the alternatives available to us as a nation,” he wrote, “we are choosing what I call the suicide option.” He added that “it might not have to be this way, that we could still move in a different direction.” Those were, in a sense, his last words. How true they remain three and a half months after his death. Tom Englehart, Tom Dispatch

Justice Dept Dumps Red, White and Blue

I have reported extensively on Obama's Department of Injustice over the past two years here. In every case, the DoJ has gone to war against America. Against the military, against free speech, against the voter, against the war on jihad, against Arizona and the protection of our borders, in support of Islamic law (sharia) and proponent of reverse racism ..... the list goes on.

Department of Justice ditches red, white, and blue stars and stripes hat tip David via Sue

The move speaks volumes.The U.S. Department of Justice has changed its web site. Gone are the patriotic, distinctly proud American red, white, and blue U.S. flag decorations on the page:


Dojrwb
Replaced by stark black and white.

Dojbw


And at the top of the page, is a rather interesting quote:

"The common law is the will of mankind, issuing from the life of the people."

Catchy, huh? Just one tiny little (too small to be relevant obviously) point -- the quote is from C. Wilfred Jenks, who in the 1930's was a leading proponent of the "international law" movement, which had as its goal to impose a global common law and which backed lobal workers' rights.'

Call it Marxism, call it Progressivism, call it Socialism -- under any of those names, it definitely makes the DOJ look corrupt in their sleek, new black website with Marxist accessories to match.

http://www.justice.gov/

How very interesting that 'they' couldn't find a nice quote from one of our Founders.

People, we have lost our Republic. Get it back.
Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs

The Health Summit Fiasco

The Blair House medical summit participants appeared overfed and sedated. They seemed locked in fear of discovery of the bribes they had taken and of the deals they had made behind closed doors. For five decades both parties had found haven in the health insurance monopolies. This time around the robber barons had become over-zealous in their greed and the fraud was openly displayed for everyone with a third grade math level to understand. Last year 2.7 Americans lost their health insurance. Nearly 45,000 died from a lack of health care. Adding the millions who lost jobs and homes, they increase the multitudes living in the woods with Food Stamps. Tim Geithner was right when he noted the people must suffer more before they get actively angry.
In 1834 populist Andrew Jackson's followers climbed on top of the WH furniture with their muddy boots. We were a Republic, then.

A Colossal Loss of Nerve

Twenty-two years ago the Israeli Supreme Court decided to reward kidnappers, child abusers and slave traffickers by not punishing them. The decision implemented violated the human rights of tens of thousands of victims including me. Thousands of State of Israel employees became criminals who were only following orders.
Similarly, the recent US Supreme Court ruling to deregulate corporate campaign funding has underlined the voicelessness of the ordinary citizens. They have no way to combat massive voter fraud, stock market manipulation, toxic asset formation, media information control, environmental catastrophe, declining educational standards and cheapening of life without health reform.
How long will it take foreign entities to buy their way into the American system? Can China purchase California? Will New England join the British Commonwealth of Nations?
We lost our Republic to the Red scare tactics of the 1950's. We have lost our nerve to attack human trafficking and genocide. We fight democratic movements in every part of the world. Overcome with fear we desert the battlefield before the fight has begun.
We have criminalized ourselves.

You Had To Be There

Almost everyone believes the poll numbers. After the Republicans have rigged many recent elections, I remind that it is much easier to distort the polls.
Aside from a number of well-paid trolls on the Internet, I have encountered no John McCain supporters. [Very few people prefer homelessness, joblessness and economic disaster. Even fewer are willing to be vaporized to further the dreams of empire.]
The ordinary citizens have been bullied and brain washed into submissiveness. I witnessed our Republic in 1950, when Americans stood up and fought for their rights. You had to be there.

Ron Paul is Right

Invading Iran puts everything at risk.

Over the past sixty years we Americans have betrayed the founding fathers and their hopes for us. Maybe, we will take back the country, but it will require a lot of time.

Nothing good will come from those in power or the
people we elect to replace them. We may learn from our mistakes. In time our
creditors may insist on repayment. Certainly, our economy and the military are
doomed. As the unemployment roles swell and the hungry homeless roam the
countryside, some might decide to rock the boat.

One day we may discover our boat has departed for
distant shores. If we had ended our aggressions and had jailed our government
leaders, we might have qualified for membership in the British Commonwealth of
Nations. If we had behaved with a trace of humanity, the other nations might
have been kinder to the latest member of the Third World.

Body Odor: 1942 America as a Republic

The American Republic had a reserved tolerance for eccentricity. There was respect for independent mountain men, gangsters and rebels the great unwashed. Part of this extended to naval intelligence personnel who rarely bathed and who never knew what day it was.

They had cracked the Japanese Imperial War Code and had determined the next target was Midway Island. Since there were only three American carriers between Midway and the West Coast, the Washington officials urged a defensive posture based on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nimitz rejected this approach and took on an offensive strategy that hung on Midway.

Out-numbered and out-gunned, the Americans seized the day as they had more flexibility than their Fascist-blinded opponents.

World War Two was a battle between republican character and fascist spinelessness.

The Cult of the Presidency

Opednews.com

In a superb new book, entitled The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, Gene Healy documents the multiple ways our political system has been corrupted by an out-of-control, unchecked Executive that could not be any more antithetical to the "presidency of limited powers and modest goals the Framers gave us in 1787." As Healy demonstrates, allowing the President to transmute into some central, omnipotent figure of authority -- as Bush/Cheney have done and as McCain seems to embrace -- "is the source of much of our political woe and some of the gravest threats to our liberties," and -- more significantly still -- this model (as the Founders recognized) virtually guarantees a state of ever-expanding militarism and endless war:

Throughout American history, virtually every major advance in executive power has come during a war or a warlike crisis. Convince the public that we are at war, and constitutional barriers to action fall, as power flows to the commander in chief.

Little wonder, then, that confronted with impossible expectations, the modern president tends to recast social and economic problems in military terms . . . . Martial rhetoric often ushers in domestic militarism, as presidents push to employ standing armies at home, to fight drug trafficking, terrorism or natural disasters. And when the president raises the battle cry, he can usually count on substantial numbers of American opinion leaders to cheer him on.

As the amazing commenter Pow Wow repeatedly documents here (see here for one typically excellent example), Congress has "increasingly deferred, dangerously and slavishly, to the presidency, which today very much resembles a monarchy," a state of affairs which -- for the reasons Healy describes -- makes endless war and imperial behavior almost inevitable. As Pow Wow puts it: "The choice for Americans today . . . is between Empire and Republic. We cannot have both."

The central truth of the 2008 election is that, with the exception of a few relatively inconsequential and symbolic matters, John McCain enthusiastically embraces the Bush/Cheney worldview in every way that matters. His ludicrous speech yesterday -- actually complaining that it is the judiciary that wields too much power and is excessively limiting presidential powers -- simply leaves no doubt about that.

-- Glenn Greenwald

Who Remembers Liberty?

Destroying Liberty for 60 Years, How Long Before it Returns?

Good luck to all of you, but I think Mr Haigh suggests a good hold on our expectations. It took three generations to lose our Republic and to tie with Tonga at #53 for freedom of the press.

We lead the world in incarceration and in information control. Our military expenditures top the rest of the world combined. We've so dummied down three generations of kids few of them can figure out why we are universally feared.

What stops Mr Bush from staging a false flags incident, declaring Martial Law and suspending the elections? The outcome finds expression in NSPD 51.

And to the Republic for Which It Stands

Very much I agree with your sentiments, but your use of 'republic' made me sorrowful. To counter the USSR in 1950, Harry Truman resorted to Red Menace tactics to scare the Americans into profligate military spending. We lost our Republic to the lobbyists and the big spenders. The Republican candidates cringe at anything critical of the Administration. Cynically, the Democrats anticipate huge political gains from the defeat of our military and the collapse of our economy.
I would like to see a face off between Ron Paul and Barack Obama. Both men with a positive agenda for the country, we would win no mtter which man won.
This would recall 1952 Dwight David Eisenhower versus Adlai E Stevenson.